Artist : Lucien GONDRET (1941-2023)
Title : The pink snow of Vexin
Medium : Oil on canvas
Type of work : Original painting signed and titled by the artist on the back of the work
Dimensions : 33 x 41 cm
Condition : Good
Provenance : Artist's studio, the invoice engages the responsibility of the gallery as to the authenticity of the work.
Expert commentary : Lucien Gondret has always admired nature and the places that surround him (the Vexin) and that he discovers during his travels in France (Normandy, Brittany, Alsace, etc.). His favorite subjects are fields, forests, seasides, old villages and old buildings. He depicts his native Vexin for which he has a particular fondness using a light and soft, sometimes vaporous touch that could be described as impressionist. His landscapes of the Vexin, always putting nature in the foreground, are in fact reminiscent of the style of Camille Pissaro. For Normandy, the touch is thicker and more expressive and is reminiscent of Maurice de Vlaminck when he depicts his country roads and old houses. For Brittany, the artist multiplies the impastos as if to better represent the roughness and the unique character of its seasides. Lucien Gondret is an artist with multiple influences whose great talent is to show us, like the realist artists of the 19th century, the soul of the landscapes. The common point in all his works is undoubtedly this ability to restore the unique effects of light that he observes in nature.
Biography : Born in Marines en Vexin in 1941, everything is beautiful in the eyes of the young artist who draws from the age of 14, sitting on the sidewalks of his village of Chars. A gifted and precocious artist, he exhibits from the age of 16 at the Salon d'Automne de l'Isle-Adam. He will exhibit throughout his life in many salons and galleries (Paris, Normandy, Brittany). He gradually finds success across the Atlantic from 1977 when two of his paintings are selected to participate in the New York Grand Prix. He will then exhibit in more than 11 art galleries, in Washington, Boston, Nashville, Burlington, Lancaster, London, Osaka, Shanghai, Melbourne, Moscow... Many prestigious awards punctuate his career including the silver medal of the Grand Prix Humanitaire de France in Saint Germain des Prés awarded by Madame Gauguin and Madame Jeanne Modigliani in 1978 to name but one. Since 1999, Lucien Gondret has been referenced in Bénézit (international dictionary of listed artists). A retrospective will be dedicated to him in 2019 at the gallery of the Château de Grouchy in Osny to celebrate his 60 years of painting.
This biography was developed by us following our expertise and the various reference books on the artist in our possession, any copying is therefore prohibited.
